The ECHO’s Liverpool FC reporter JAMES PEARCE gives his verdict on the FA’s decision to ban Luis Suarez for 10 games

LIVERPOOL Football Club were braced for bad news but the punishment meted out to Luis Suarez surpassed even their worst fears. There was a sense of shock as club officials came to terms with the severity of the 10-game ban handed down by the Football Association’s independent regulatory commission.

Among Kopites today anger and bewilderment abounds. Not because Suarez didn’t deserve to pay a hefty price for sinking his teeth into the right arm of Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic.

There is no defending the indefensible and the striker’s disgraceful conduct warranted a significant spell on the sidelines.

Yet the fans’ ire has quite rightly been directed at a deeply flawed disciplinary system littered with inconsistencies.

Biting on a football pitch is unforgiveable, but is it really a more serious offence than racism, head-butting, elbowing, stamping and reckless two-footed tackles?

The FA appear to believe it is. But don’t bet on the answer being the same next week.

The governing body’s desire to make an example out of Suarez was predictable. The media storm which followed Sunday’s clash at Anfield gave them the perfect opportunity to bare their teeth.

Yesterday afternoon there would have been plenty of back-slapping in the corridors of Wembley for sending out the strongest of messages. But in truth the system the FA preside over is a complete mess.

Once the written reasons for the judgement are released today, it will become clear how the commission came to the conclusion that 10 matches fitted the crime.

The fact it was a second offence, following Suarez’s seven-match ban for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal in 2010, will have undoubtedly counted against him.

It also won’t have gone down well with the panel that his guilty plea to the violent conduct charge was accompanied with the claim that anything more than the standard three-game ban would be unfair.

But Liverpool still have good reason to feel aggrieved. This isn’t about excusing Suarez’s behaviour last Sunday but putting what he did wrong into perspective in English football’s hall of shame.

Back in September, John Terry was banned for four games and fined £220,000 for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand. The Chelsea captain admitted to using the words ‘f****** black c***’.

According to the FA, the reason Suarez got double that suspension following his bust-up with Patrice Evra in October 2011 was because a commision ruled he had used the word ‘negro’ seven times.

So eight games for repeated racial abuse, 10 matches for failing to leave even a mark on Ivanovic’s right arm. Work that one out.

The FA regularly allow potentially career-threatening challenges to go unpunished – hiding behind the excuse that the officials ‘saw the incident at the time’.

In recent weeks Callum McManaman, Sergio Aguero and Samir Nasri have benefited from the system’s abject failure to deliver justice as they have escaped censure for shameful tackles.

The FA always have the option to deliver retrospective punishment but pick and choose when they do so.

Often they ignore damning video footage in the misguided belief that if the officials had even a fleeting glimpse of what happened that should be the end of it.

Even when they do take action, many bans are tame. Earlier this season Chelsea’s Eden Hazard booted a ballboy at Swansea and Everton’s Marouane Fellaini head-butted Ryan Shawcross – both only got standard three-match bans.

Only five players have ever been handed longer suspensions by the FA than Suarez.

Sheffield Wednesday’s Paulo Di Canio got 11 games for shoving over referee Alan Wiley, Joey Barton was banned for 12 matches for his catalogue of offences against Man City last May and Rio Ferdinand was sidelined for eight months after missing a drugs test a decade ago.

Eric Cantona also got eight months for his ‘kung-fu’ kick on a fan at Selhurst Park in 1995 and eight years later Mark Bosnich got nine months after testing positive for cocaine.

What grates is those high profile examples of players committing acts of serious thuggery and not receiving as harsh a sentence as Suarez.

In the late 80s, Arsenal’s Paul Davis was only banned for nine games after throwing a punch which broke Glenn Cockerill’s jaw.

Back in August 2006, the country was shocked by Manchester City defender Ben Thatcher’s vicious forearm smash on Portsmouth’s Pedro Mendes, who was knocked unconscious by the force of the blow. Mendes required oxygen pitchside and suffered a seizure while being transferred to hospital.

Thatcher, who was only booked at the time by referee Dermot Gallagher, was subsequently banned for eight matches for arguably the worst foul in Premier League history.

On that occasion the FA found a way around their rules which prevented retrospective punishment when the official has already brandished a card by saying there were ‘exceptional circumstances’.

Yet two months later the FA did nothing after Spurs’ Jermain Defoe sunk his teeth into Javier Mascherano. Apparently, Steve Bennett had booked Defoe at the time so that was the end of the matter.

Defoe claimed he had simply been ‘mischievious’ and it was laughed off by his manager Martin Jol. Same offence as Suarez, very different outcome.

Compared to the 10-game ban the Uruguayan has been handed, it’s an inexplicable case of double standards.

The same can be said about the way the FA preach about being the moral guardians of the game and the need to clamp down on misconduct.

After all this is the same organisation who fought and won an appeal to get Wayne Rooney’s three-match ban reduced ahead of Euro 2012 – despite the fact he had been rightly dismissed for kicking Montenegro’s Miodrag Dzudovic up the backside. What kind of message did that send out?

It’s hard to have sympathy for Suarez. After all his stupidity gave the FA this chance to throw the book at him.

If the ban stands and the striker stays put he won’t pull on a Liverpool shirt again until late September.

Remarkbly, on his return he will have sat out a total of 20 matches through suspension during his Anfield career despite having never been shown a red card.

Suarez got himself into this mess and will pay a heavy price for his lack of control. But it just seems wrong that others have been sentenced to much less for inflicting far greater harm.

THE length of Luis Suarez’s punishment for biting another player has shocked a host of former Liverpool players.

“It’s over the top,” John Aldridge said.

“We were expecting a big ban because you can’t condone what he’s done but it is two or three games too many.

“There is so much inconsistency with the FA. There are tackles that can break people’s legs and those lads are only given three game bans.

“Suarez needs to now learn to channel his abnormal aggression on the pitch.”

“We all expected a long ban but we weren’t sure how long. What Luis Suarez did was wrong and we don’t want to see those things on the football pitch. But I am a little surprised at how long the ban is. For a similar incident he was banned for seven matches but got 10 for this.

“It will be interesting to see what the report says.”

Former Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson added: “I think they will appeal and might get it to eight. He’s now becoming a constant offender. There’s probably a sheet of A4 paper with all his offences.

“He needs to learn quickly. It’s distracting for everyone. Even if it gets reduced to eight, that’s 20% of the season. Liverpool are going to have to make a decision on his future.”

Reds legend Jimmy Case believes Suarez’s disciplinary record has played a part in the Independent Regulatory Panel’s decision.

He said: “It’s a long ban and I can only think they were influenced by what Suarez has done wrong in the past. They haven’t just judged him on this incident.

“I think rather than the length of the ban, it’s the inconsistency which will annoy supporters.

“The FA are basically saying trying to bite someone is worse than racism. That just can’t be right.

“I don’t think the FA come out of it very well at all. They have just reacted to all the media storm around Suarez.”

Ray Hougton added: “I’ve got to be honest, I was staggered when I heard the punishment was a 10-game ban.

“He got seven when he was in Holland (for biting Otoman Bakkal) and I thought it would be roughly the same this time. With it being three more maybe the FA are coming out and saying it is totally unacceptable.”